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A SMILE

Name: A SMILE
Author: Raoul Follereau
ISBN: 978-1-77278-227-1

by Raoul Follereau ; illustrated by Hoda Hadadi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 10, 2021

A joyful, infectious celebration of the transformative power of a smile.

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Smiling children transform all they meet.

Using brightly colored forms, cheerful collage illustrations provide a lively, child-centric, visual context for this uncredited English adaptation of the poem “Un sourire,” attributed to Follereau, a French humanitarian who worked with people who had Hansen’s disease. Opening with smiling parents waking their children in the morning, the simple text reminds readers “a smile costs nothing” and can be given to others. “A smile only takes a moment, / But its memory lasts forever,” the poem goes on. Walking to school, the children enter a neighborhood bakery where their smiles provoke laughter, proving smiles generate happiness and keep businesses running. A sad-looking, well-dressed, older businessman enters the bakery and leaves smiling. He shares coffee with a tired young man outside, showing no one’s too rich or poor to need or receive a smile, which is a “sign of friendship,” providing a “moment of rest for the weary.” Carrying a huge birthday cake, the smiling children proceed to school, where their preoccupied teacher breaks into a huge grin when her pupils (all smiling) surprise her with a birthday party. The poem appropriately closes with a reminder to be generous with smiles while, outside the bakery, the now-smiling young man plays his violin to delight the children. Characters are depicted with varying skin tones and racial presentations; the two protagonist children present White.

A joyful, infectious celebration of the transformative power of a smile. (biographical note) (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-77278-227-1

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Pajama Press

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S POETRY

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK LOST AND FOUND

From the Little Blue Truck series

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 2026

Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed.

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Beep! Beep! Beep! Toad and Little Blue Truck get ready for a hayride.

After the titular vehicle is loaded with hay, Toad is nowhere to be found. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Where are you, Toad?” asks Little Blue Truck. All the barnyard animals look for him. Sheep searches the meadow. Goose and Duck check the pond. Others pitch in, too, but Toad seems to have disappeared…until Hen hears snoring coming from the pile of hay in the back of Little Blue Truck. Although the text’s scansion is imperfect in places (adults may want to pre-read to ensure a smooth read-aloud), the bouncy meter and rhyming text nevertheless capture the energy of the search and the farmyard community’s concern for Toad’s safety, making this a solid storytime choice. Eye-catching illustrations with rich, fully saturated colors balance the right level of detail while still highlighting the animal that is the focus of each verse. By introducing one farm animal at a time, Schertle also helps the youngest readers begin to identify barnyard animals by name and understand their unique farm homes. Traditional animal sounds are part of the text, and listeners will add them to their vocabulary. It all ends with the promised hayride, bringing the tale to a joyous ending.

Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026

ISBN: 9780063436121

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE BLUE TRUCK AND RACER RED
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE BLUE TRUCK MAKES A FRIEND
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry

- BOOK REVIEW
TIME FOR SCHOOL, LITTLE BLUE TRUCK
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)